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Constantine met with the eastern emperor at Milan, capital of the
late Roman Empire. They agreed on a policy of religious tolerance.
The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity, but also allowed Romans
religious choice.
(CU, 6/87)(ITV, 1/96, p.58)(SFEC, 7/13/97,
p.T13)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M6)

379-395 Theodosius I (c.346-395) served as emperor
East Roman Republic.
(WUD, 1994 p.1471)

380 Theodosius I ordered that
all people under his rule embrace Christianity.
(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.M6)

410 Aug 24, Rome was overrun by
the Visigoths, an event that symbolized the fall of the Western
Roman Empire. German barbarians sacked Rome [see Aug 18].
(V.D.-H.K.p.87)(AP, 8/24/97)(HN, 8/24/98)

742 Apr 2, Charlemagne (d.814),
Charles I the Great, King of the Franks and first Holy Roman emperor
(800-14), was born. His capital was at Aachen (Acquisgrana in
Latin).
(V.D.-H.K.p.105)(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.46)(HN,
4/2/98)

472 Aug 18, Flavius Ricimer,
general of the Western Roman Empire, kingmaker, was born.
(MC, 8/18/02)

794 Charlemagne created a
single currency for his empire.
(Econ, 6/18/11, p.30)

870 Aug 8, The Treaty of Mersen
(Meerssen) partitioned the realm of Lothair II by his uncles Louis
the German of East Francia and Charles the Bald of West Francia, the
two surviving sons of Emperor Louis I the Pious.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Meerssen)

875-877 Charles II the Kale, King of France,
served as Holy Roman emperor.
(MC, 10/6/01)

876 Oct 8, Charles the Bald was
defeated at the Battle of Andernach.
(HN, 10/8/98)

877 Oct 6, Charles II the Kale,
King of France and Roman emperor (875-77), died at 54.
(MC, 10/6/01)

912 Nov 23, Otto I, the Great
(d.973), German king and Holy Roman emperor (962-73), was born. Otto
the Great became King of Germany in 936.
(AHD, 1971, p.931)(MC, 11/23/01)

929 Eadgyth (910-946), the
sister of King Athelstan and the granddaughter of Alfred the Great,
was given in marriage to Otto I, the king of Saxony and the Holy
Roman Emperor. She had at least two children before her death in 946
at age 36. In 2010 her remains were found in Magdeburg Cathedral in
northern Germany.
(AFP, 1/20/10)(AFP, 6/17/10)

936-973 Otto the Great became King of Germany and
later the first Holy Roman Emp.
(AHD, 1971, p.931)

946 Eadgyth, the sister of King
Athelstan and the granddaughter of Alfred the Great, died. She had
been given in marriage to Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 929.
She was initially buried at the Monastery of Mauritius in Magdeburg.
In 1510 her remains were transferred to Magdeburg Cathedral in
northern Germany, where her bones were found in 2008.
(AFP, 1/20/10)

983 Dec 7, Otto III [aged 3]
took the throne after his father's death in Italy.
(HN, 12/7/98)

983 The Lutici, a federation of
tribes in northeastern Germany, were first recorded by written
sources in the context of the uprising of this year, by which they
annihilated the rule of the Holy Roman Empire in the Billung and
Northern Marches. Hostilities continued until 997.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutici)

1036-1056 Henry III ruled the Holy Roman Empire,
which extended from Hamburg and Bremen in the north to the instep of
Italy to the south, Burgundy in the west, and Hungary and Poland to
the east.
(V.D.-H.K.p.111)

1037 May 28, Holy Roman Emperor
Conrad II issued The Constitutio de feudis ("Constitution on
Fiefs"), a law regulating feudal contracts. It included a phrase
similar to “law of the land." The law was based, in its own words,
on the "legal code of our predecessors" (constitucio antecessorum
nostrorum).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutio_de_feudis)(Econ, 12/20/14,
p.34)

1050 Nov 11, Henry IV, Holy
Roman Emperor, was born.
(HN, 11/11/98)

1076 Feb 14, Pope Gregory VII
excommunicated Henry IV.
(MC, 2/14/02)

1077 Jan 28, Pope Gregory VII
pardoned German emperor Henry IV at Canossa in northern Italy. Henry
had insisted that he reserved the right to "invest" bishops and
other clergymen, despite the papal decree, but became penitent when
faced with permanent excommunication.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_to_Canossa)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.88)

1153 Mar 23, The first Treaty
of Constance was signed between Frederick I "Barbarossa" and Pope
Eugene III. By the terms of the treaty, the Emperor was to prevent
any action by Manuel I Komnenos to reestablish the Byzantine Empire
on Italian soil and to assist the pope against his enemies in revolt
in Rome.
(http://tinyurl.com/lxs2gzy)

1190 Jun 10, Frederick I van
Hohenstaufen, Barbarossa (1123-1190), king of Germany and Italy and
the Holy Roman Empire, drowned crossing the Saleph River while
leading an army of the Third Crusade. Frederick struggled to extend
German influence throughout Europe, maneuvering both politically and
militarily. He clashed with the pope, the powerful Lombards and
fellow Germans among others throughout the years. He joined the
Third Crusade in the Spring of 1189 in their efforts to free
Jerusalem from Saladin's army
(WUD, 1994, p.565)(HN, 6/10/98)(HNQ, 2/3/01)

1194 Dec 26, Frederick II,
German Emperor (1212-1220) and King of Sicily (1198-1250), was born
in Lesi, Italy. He became the Holy Roman emperor and King of Italy
in 1220 and continued to 1250.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor)

1220 Nov 22, After promising to
go to the aid of the Fifth Crusade within nine months, Hohenstaufen
King Frederick II was crowned Holy Roman Emperor and King of Italy
by Pope Honorius III.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor)

1221 Emperor Frederick II
issued a law that declared that violence could be committed against
jesters without punishment.
(SFC,12/897, p.A17)

1227 Roman Emperor Frederick II
was first excommunicated by the Catholic Pope because his growing
empire threatened the independence of the papal states. [see 1239]
(AP, 5/5/06)

1239 Roman Emperor Frederick II
was excommunicated a 2nd time because his growing empire threatened
the independence of the papal states.
(AP, 5/5/06)

1273-1291 Rudolf I, King of Germany and emperor of
the Holy Roman Empire. He founded the Hapsburg dynasty.
(WUD, 1994, p.1251)

c1300-1400 In the early 14th century the
Gottscheers settled in the Carniola region of what later became
Slovenia. The Germanic people were sent there to till the land and
pay taxes to the Carinthian counts of Ortenburg and to serve as a
forward guard for the Holy Roman Empire.
(SFC, 6/16/99, p.A12)

1419 Aug 16, Wenceslas
(b.1361), son of Charles IV and King of Germany, died. He served as
King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia (1363) and King of the Romans (1376).
(MC, 8/16/02)(Internet)

1420 Jul 14, Jan Zizka
(1360?-1424) led the Taborites in Battle at Vitkov Zizka's hill
(Prague). The Taborites beat forces under Sigismund, the
pro-Catholic King of Hungary and Bohemia. This was part of the
Hussite Wars (1419-1436).
(http://user.intop.net/~jhollis/janzizka.htm)

1433 May 31, Sigismund was
crowned emperor of Rome.
(HN, 5/31/98)

1459-1525 Jakob Fugger II, German banker. He
minted his own money and maintained banks in every European capital.
He held a contract for managing the Pope's money and collecting cash
for the remission of sins. He bankrolled the election of Charles V.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)

1477 Future Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I, a member of the Habsburg family of Austria, married
Mary of Burgundy, heiress of all the Netherlands. Maximilian had
given Mary a diamond engagement ring, a practice that soon spread.
In 1996 Andrew Wheatcroft wrote a history of the Habsburgs: "The
Habsburgs."
(WSJ, 1/19/96, p.A-12)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.6)(SFC,
5/28/08, p.G2)

1489 Feb 14, Henry VII and Holy
Roman Emperor Maximilian I ally to assist the Bretons in the Treaty
of Dordrecht.
(http://tudors.crispen.org/chronology/index.html)

1496 Oct 20, Spain’s Juana of
Castile (1479-1555) married Philip the Handsome, the Duke of
Burgundy, in Lier (later a part of Belgium). Philip's parents were
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and his first wife, Duchess Mary of
Burgundy. Juana had sailed from Spain with 15,000 men to the
Habsburg Netherlands. Between 1498 and 1507, she gave birth to six
children: two emperors and four queens.
(Econ, 4/13/13,
p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_of_Castile)

1519 Jul 6, Charles of Spain
was elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona. The Catholic heir to
the Hapsburg dynasty, Charles V, was elected Holy Roman Emperor,
combining the crowns of Spain, Burgundy (with the Netherlands),
Austria and Germany. He was the grandson of Ferdnand and Isabella of
Spain.
(V.D.-H.K.p.162)(NH, 9/96, p.18)(HN, 7/6/98)

1520 A 9-piece tapestry set was
created for the Holy Roman Empire coronation of Belgium-born Charles
V, King of Spain, titled “Los Honores." The set was restored by
Belgium in 2000 for the 500th anniversary of Charles’ birth.
(WSJ, 4/11/02, p.AD7)

1521 Apr 17, Under the
protection of Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, Martin Luther
first appeared before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Imperial
Diet to face charges stemming from his religious writings. The Roman
Catholic Church had already excommunicated him on Jan 3, 1521. He
was later declared an outlaw by Charles V.
(NH, 9/96, p.18)(HN, 4/17/98)(AP, 4/17/07)

1521 May 8, Emperor Charles V
and the Diet issued the Edict of Worms. It banned Luther’s work and
enjoined his detention, but was not able to be enforced.
(NH, 9/96, p.20)

1522 England declared war on
France and Scotland. Holy Roman Emp. Charles V visited Henry VIII
and signed the Treaty of Windsor. Both monarchs agreed to invade
France.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1522 Suleiman I captured Rhodes
from the Knights of St. John, who were resettled on Malta by Charles
V.
(TL-MB, p.12)

1523 The Ottoman Emperor
Suleiman the Magnificent successfully overcame the Knights
Hospitaller, Order of St. John, from their position on the island of
Rhodes in the Aegean Sea. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, offered
the Knights the Isle of Malta. In exchange for a perpetual lease the
Knights undertook to send the emperor a falcon (made famous in the
mystery novel, The Maltese Falcon, and the movie of the same name)
once every year as a token of their fealty. They remained there
until the time of Napoleon, and became known as the Knights of
Malta.
(WSJ, 12/30/94, A-6, Review of The Knights of
Malta by H.J.A. Sire)

1525 Feb 24, In the first of
the Franco-Habsburg Wars, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V captured
the French king Francis I at the battle of Pavia, in Italy. This was
the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521-26.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pavia)(Econ, 12/12/09, p.93)

1526 Jan 14, Francis of France,
held captive by Charles V for a year, signed the Treaty of Madrid,
giving up most of his claims in France and Italy.
(HN, 1/14/99)

1528 Jan 22, England &
France declared war on Emperor Charles V of Spain. The French army
was later expelled from Naples and Genoa.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(MC, 1/22/02)

1530 Feb 23, Spain's Carlos I
was crowned Holy Roman Emperor Charles V by Pope Clement VII in the
last coronation of a German king by a Pope. Charles restored the
Medici to power after capturing Florence and ceded Malta to the
landless religious order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.
(TL-MB, p.14)(MC, 2/24/02)(PC, 1992, p.176)

1535 Holy Roman Emperor Charles
V led a naval expedition to Tunis against Barbarossa. The foray
proved successful, but Barbarossa escaped and continued to fight.
(WSJ, 7/21/08, p.A11)

1536 Oct 6, William Tyndale
(b.1494), the English translator of the New and Old Testament, was
burned at the stake at Vilvoorde Castle (Belgium) as a heretic by
the Holy Roman Empire.
(www.historymole.com/cgi-bin/main/results.pl?type=theme&theme=WTyndale)

1540 Feb 14, Emperor Charles V
entered Ghent without resistance and executed the rebels. He
brutally beat down an uprising against taxes for an expansionist
war. Nine leaders were beheaded and another hanged. City burgers
were forced to walk the streets barefoot with rope hanging round
their necks. The "Gentse Feesten" annual festival re-enacts this
event every mid-July.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.T10)(MC, 2/14/02)

1542 War was renewed
between the Holy Roman Empire and France.
(TL-MB, p.16)

1546 Charles V got into the
Schmalkaldic War against the Protestant princes upon support by the
Catholic Counter-Reformation.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.17)

1547 Apr 24, Charles V's troops
defeated the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at the battle of
Muhlburg.
(HN, 4/24/98)

1551 Mar 9, Emperor Charles V
appointed his son Philip as heir to the throne. Don Philip was
recognized as the sole heir of Charles V.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(MC, 3/9/02)

1555 Sep 25, The Religious
Peace of Augsburg compromised differences between Catholics and
Protestants in the German states. Each prince could chose which
religion would be followed in his realm. Lutheranism was
acknowledged by the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace of Augsburg was the
first permanent legal basis for the existence of Lutheranism as well
as Catholicism in Germany. It was promulgated as part of the Diet of
the Holy Roman Empire. Charles V's Augsburg Interim of 1548 was a
temporary doctrinal agreement between German Catholics and
Protestants that was overthrown in 1552.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(PCh, 1992, p.189)(HNQ,
2/8/99)

1576 Rudolf II was crowned King
of the Holy Roman Empire and moved the Imperial Court from Vienna to
Prague.
(WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A13)

1583-1634 Albrecht Wenzel von Wallenstein, soldier
of fortune. He prospered by providing armed regiments to Ferdnand,
the Habsburg emperor. He acquired a fortune through marriage to an
elderly widow with huge estates in Moravia. He was appointed
governor of Bohemia and later was ordered killed by the emperor.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)

1584 Jan 7, This was the last
day of the Julian calendar in Bohemia & Holy Roman empire. The
1582 Gregorian (or New World) calendar was adopted by this time in
Belgium, most of the German Roman Catholic states and the
Netherlands.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, Par p.27)(MC, 1/7/02)

1600 Cardinal Filippo Spinelli,
Pope Clement VIII’s ambassador in Prague, wrote to the Pope that
Emperor Rudolf II was bewitched by the devil.
(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.P9)

1620 Ferdinand II became
emperor of the Holy Roman Empire after the death of Rudolf II and
moved the Imperial Court back to Vienna. He sold dozens of paintings
collected by Rudolf II that he found “lewd."
(WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A13)(WUD, 1994, p.524)

1647 Mar 14, The 1647 Treaty of
Ulm was reached between the French and the Bavarians during the
Thirty Years' War. In negotiations with the French, Maximilian I of
Bavaria abandoned his alliance with the Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand
III through the Treaty of Ulm. In 1648 Bavaria returned to the side
of the emperor.
(HNQ, 11/7/98)

1648 Oct 24, The Peace of
Westphalia ended the German Thirty Years War and effectively
destroyed the Holy Roman Empire. The Treaties of Osnabruck and
Munster, that ended the Thirty Years" War, divided Pomerania, a
historic region that once stretched from Stralsund to the Vistula
along the Baltic Sea in north-central Europe, into two parts known
as Hither Pomerania and Farther Pomerania. Hither Pomerania, the
area west of the Oder River, was granted to Sweden. Farther
Pomerania was east of the Oder and went to the state of Brandenburg.
Hither Pomerania is now part of the German state of Mecklenburg-West
Pomerania; Farther Pomerania is now part of Poland. The 30 years war
had spread from one end of Germany to the other, and left the
country a scene of desolation and disorder, wasted by fire, sword
and plague. The war was followed by great scarcity, due to the lack
of laborers. San Marino did not attend the conference or sign the
treaty because it had not been involved in the fighting, however it
was linked to states that were fighting and was therefore still at
war with Sweden until 1996 when an official end was declared. The
treaty abolished private armies and the nation-state acquired a
monopoly on maintaining armies and fighting wars.
(AP, 10/24/97)(WSJ, 6/1/99, p.A22)(HNQ,
10/6/99)(Econ, 5/24/08, p.80)

1652 Ferdinand III, the
Habsburg monarch of the Holy Roman Empire, arrived in Regensburg for
a year-long gathering of the Reichstag, the imperial diet.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.78)

1707 Aug 31, The Treaty or
Convention of Altranstädt was signed between Charles XII of Sweden
and Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor. It settled the rights of
Protestants in Silesia and forced Augustus the Strong to yield the
Polish throne to Stanisław Leszczyński (1677-1766).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Altranst%C3%A4dt_%281707%29)

1713 Most European powers vowed
to respect the 1713 royal pronouncement of the Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI, called the Pragmatic Sanction, in which he declared that
if he had no direct male heir upon his death, his Austrian domains
would go to his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa.
(HNQ, 7/29/99)

1714 Sep 7, In Baden,
Switzerland, Charles VI signed the Treaty of Baden, also called the
Peace of Baden, on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire. It was one of
the agreements that concluded the War of the Spanish Succession.
(www.emersonkent.com/historic_documents/treaty_of_baden_1714.htm)

1719 Jan 23, Principality of
Liechtenstein was created within the Holy Roman Empire.
(MC, 1/23/02)

1740 The ignoring of the
Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 led to the War of the Austrian Succession
in 1740. When Charles VI died in 1740, Maria Theresa’s claim was
ignored by Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria, Augustus III of Saxony
and Poland, and Philip V of Spain, igniting a general European war.
(HNQ, 7/29/99)